Are people using escalating hints to express romantic/sexual interest in general?
Does it follow the specific conversational patterns usually used?
1 is true in my experience, while 2 usually isn’t. I can think of two examples where I’ve flirted by escalating signals. In both cases it was more to do with escalating physical touch and proximity, though verbal tone also played a part. I would guess that the typical examples of 2 you normally see (like A complimenting B’s choice of shoes, then the B using a mild verbal innuendo, then A making a comment about the B’s figure) don’t happen as often, since not many people are good enough wordsmiths to do the escalation purely verbally.
Plus it’s not the Victorian era anymore and it’s acceptable to escalate by slowly leaning forward as the conversation progresses, almost-accidentally brushing someone’s hand, etc.
There’s two parts here.
Are people using escalating hints to express romantic/sexual interest in general?
Does it follow the specific conversational patterns usually used?
1 is true in my experience, while 2 usually isn’t. I can think of two examples where I’ve flirted by escalating signals. In both cases it was more to do with escalating physical touch and proximity, though verbal tone also played a part. I would guess that the typical examples of 2 you normally see (like A complimenting B’s choice of shoes, then the B using a mild verbal innuendo, then A making a comment about the B’s figure) don’t happen as often, since not many people are good enough wordsmiths to do the escalation purely verbally.
Plus it’s not the Victorian era anymore and it’s acceptable to escalate by slowly leaning forward as the conversation progresses, almost-accidentally brushing someone’s hand, etc.